Who You Gonna Ask? What Ghostbusters Can Teach Us About Market Research

Something strange is happening in your market.

A competitor you barely noticed keeps coming up in conversations. Customers are asking questions your messaging does not answer. A product feature everyone expected people to love is getting a quieter response than planned.

Before deciding you have a ghost problem, you probably need a research conversation.

With Halloween here, Ghostbusters feels like a good excuse to talk about investigating the unexpected. The connection is playful, but the business question is real: when something does not make sense, how do you figure out what is happening?

I'll admit that Halloween gave me an excuse to bring Ghostbusters into a research conversation. But the connection works for me. An unexpected finding is interesting, and my next question is usually: what should we investigate?

Describe the strange thing first

Imagine a team notices fewer people requesting a product demonstration. Someone suggests the price is too high. Another person thinks the website is confusing. Someone else blames a competitor.

Those are possible explanations. The observation is simpler: fewer people are requesting a demonstration. Check the period and audience behind that observation, too. A change in who visits the website could produce a different pattern from a change in how similar visitors respond.

I would keep that distinction visible in the research brief. Write down what the team has observed, what it suspects and what it still needs to learn. Otherwise, the questionnaire can quietly become an exercise in confirming the loudest theory in the room.

Build a list of possible explanations

Before commissioning a survey, give the team time to name competing explanations. In our demonstration example, price could be one. Others might include a change in website visitors, unclear product information or fewer people currently needing the category.

For each explanation, write down what evidence would support it and what would make the team reconsider. This keeps a plausible story from quietly becoming an accepted fact.

I would also check what the business already knows. Website records, customer questions and sales notes can help identify where the uncertainty sits. They may reveal that the research question needs to change before anyone is recruited.

Investigate a clue that does not fit

A useful investigation pays attention to the awkward detail. Imagine demonstration requests have fallen overall, but visitors from one source continue to request them at the previous rate. That difference could help narrow the next question.

It does not prove an explanation. It gives the team something specific to examine rather than another reason to debate the entire market.

Our research methodology connects study design to the question being investigated. Once the uncertainty is clear, we can decide whether a survey, interviews or another source of information would help resolve it. The method follows the investigation rather than becoming the starting assumption.

Leave room for an unexpected answer

The most useful finding may not fit the team's original explanation. In our hypothetical demonstration example, research might suggest that people cannot tell which product is appropriate for their organisation.

That would lead to a different conversation from simply lowering the price. It might prompt clearer information or further investigation into how prospects evaluate the offer.

A study should allow that possibility. If every question assumes the original theory is correct, we have given the investigation a very narrow path to follow.

Know when the mystery needs another step

A survey can measure how common a reported experience is within a defined audience. Interviews can help explain what people mean and how they describe the situation.

Sometimes the first study reveals a question the team had not considered. That is a reason to examine the evidence, not force a neat ending. Our qualitative research can help explore those details when a conversation is more useful than another response option.

When an investigation is intended to support a public story, our PR survey research helps connect a worthwhile question with credible findings and clear methodology.

This Halloween, enjoy the ghosts on screen. For the unexplained things happening in your business, start with a clear question and people qualified to answer it. If you need help working out who to ask, let's have a conversation.

About the author

Andrew Edwards is the founder and CEO of CITE Research. His background includes survey research at Nielsen and public relations at Edelman. He helps organisations use original research for business decisions, PR, marketing and thought leadership.